2:21 pm, May 11, 2014
0
Proposal For Changes
In lieu of the recent changes that have apparently hit the test server (I don't play on the test server so I'm going off of what I've read in the forums) I figured I'd put my thoughts on a few different topics into one post. It may be a long one, but please read it through, I'd like some feedback on the overall thoughts, and hope this can spur a nice discussion where we can find a solution to the issues that will be addressed that can hopefully make everyone happy.
The three (3) primary issues that I'll be giving my views on are:
-Weapon Mastery
-Walk-ins
-Role-less Buffs
All three of these have been (fairly) hot topics on the General Discussion forum for the last 2 or three days, with Walk-ins cropping up today. That being said, here are my thoughts.
Weapon Mastery
Weapon Mastery has some obvious flaws that everyone is starting to notice, or has already noticed but I've only just recently found the complaints (only started on the forum a few days ago). One of the primary complaints about WM, is that it caters heavily to Precision, you can get more damage with a Precision DPS setup and nothing but buff powers on your loadout, than you can with a Might DPS setup with actual damaging powers on your loadout.
In addition, there is also the complaint that Weapon Mastery has little benefit to the support roles, with the exception of the fact that trolls no longer need to power everyone constantly due to the reduced power cost if you clip the WM combo properly. I know that tanks for example (my main role) won't be using WM Combos during Gear Appropriate Content (GAC) because they'll be spending too much time blocking. So the only benefit for a tank is if they have enough SP to get enough weapons "mastered" so they can get the nodes at the very bottom to give as much in the ways of tank stats as possible.
Proposed Changes
I propose (thanks to a discussion had in another thread on this topic) the following changes to Weapon Mastery:
Remove Power Cost Reduction
Replenishing power is part of a trolls job. They're not solely there as the raid's battery, no. However, PoT and dump are still part of the trolls job. Any GOOD troll should have no problem coping with powering AND doing the rest of what they need to do (debuff, controlling, etc.)
Make WM a Power Amp
What I mean by this, is that it would amp your role specific power effects.
Trolls would get a greater PoT if they clipped a WM combo with their PoT; Stronger/longer lasting controls if they clipped the WM combo with a control power, etc etc.
Healers would receive greater HoTs (but not burst, so-as to avoid people feeling like they need to and potentially wiping because they didn't heal in time.) if they clipped...
Tanks would (in the case of Ice) gain a longer shield duration, or a more effective shield (takes more damage before it breaks).
DPS would actually be able to use their DPS powers instead of just spamming WM combos for insane damages.
Remove Damage Increase on the WM Combos
Specifically, remove the "High Damage Version" from all the cross weapon combos, WM shouldn't be about insane damage, it should be about balancing powers. Making every power a Precision DPS power is not balancing the powers. So keep the cross weapon combos, but remove the excess damage from the final hit.
Walk-ins
The primary issue with Walk-ins appears to be the abuse of them in order to get marks to "hyper"gear to higher tear content, allowing individuals new to the game to get to the end-game content without properly learning their role, without properly learning raid etiquette, and without learning other basic properties of how this game works.
The issue, is that Walk-ins are an integral part in how a lot of already experienced people gear their alts so as to avoid having to go through the hellacious grind again and again every time they make a new alt.
So the question is whether or not a medium can be achieved to keep both sides of the Walk-ins (experienced players vs new) balanced and prevent the Walk-ins from being abused.
Proposed Changes
To properly lay out a design idea for fixing the issue with walk-ins, you have to understand the people that get walk-ins, which there are basically two of.
1) Experienced players looking to skip the boring, mundane, and extremely tedious business of the BatCaves, FoS, etc. for any alts they make.
and
2) Inexperienced players that are informed of what a walk-in is by a Tier5 player the instant they hit lvl 30.
There ARE other types of people that do walk-ins, but they all fall primarily into one of these two sections.
So how do we solve these issues? Surely an experienced player should be able to hyper-gear his or her alts freely. Surely we don't want inexperienced players in T5 or T6 runs, well...
The precedent is already set for what needs to happen with Walk-ins. We're given a free XP Booster Box+ from the campaign missions while leveling. These (obviously) help us level our toons faster so we can reach that End Game glory that every DCUO player wants to reach. You can also purchase XP Booster Box+ with Station Cash via the Marketplace. Clearly SoE wants us to get our toons up to lvl 30 so we can find out where the real gameplay starts, end game.
So the proposed change I have in mind, is to lock everyone from walking into a raid unless they're high enough CR. Then, following the precedent found above, place a "walkin ticket" in the Marketplace for 100-300 SC, allowing for 1 walkin into a raid above your CR.
How does this fix the issue?
Experienced players now have an option at hand to power-gear their toons unimpeded by walkin limitations, providing they're willing to pay a paltry 100-300 SC to get the walk-in permissions.
Inexperienced players will not likely purchase anything from the cash shop because they're still new to the game and don't know if they'll stick it out, so unless a T5 player demands that they get a walk-in ticket, and they actually spend the money to get it, inexperienced players will no longer be getting walk-ins to hyper gear, meaning they'll play through the content as intended, and properly learn their role/raid etiquette/ etc.etc.
The added bonus this option gives, is SoE making a little more money. I, as an experienced player, and somewhat of an altoholic
... have no problem paying 1-3 USD to get one of my toons hypergeared...
This solution offers happiness to the experienced players that want to hyper-gear their alts, happiness to the experienced players that are sick and tired of getting horrible players in their T5 runs (due to not properly learning via the walk-in skipping of content), and happiness to SoE because, let's face it, who doesn't love a little extra money?
What about the SP difference from missing feats?
Simply put,I imagine that most people with an urge to hyper-gear an alt, will also have an urge to just buy feats with replay badges, at least to the extent of being more than capable of proper function in a T5 or T6 environment.
The only real way that the SP difference would be an issue, is if it was a fresh player that was on their first toon, and had never gotten the feats to begin with.
Role-less Buffs
This one is relatively simple, role-less buffs are supposedly "killing" the need for the support classes.
Agreed, the tank-less buff is far too strong, and allows for thanks to be neglected in all cases except the most extreme (lookin at you PW and Hal Jordan...)
The others are fairly negligible.
Proposed Changes
Basically, set a priority to each role-less buff (i.e. the tankless would have highest priority, troll having second, and heal being last priority (just an example...)). Then make it so each group gets ONLY one of these buffs, so if you run all DPS, you would ONLY get the tankless buff. If you had a Tank but no heal or troll, you would only get the troll buff, etc etc.
This would make it so that you couldn't flat out abuse it by running 4 DPS (in fact, make the priority == Troll is 1, Heal is 2, Tank is 3) because you would only get the troll buff (arguably not going to help a group of 4 DPS as much as the tank and heal buffs.)
Something like this would be my suggested fix for role-less buffs.
That's all ^_^
So what are some thoughts and opinions on this?
The three (3) primary issues that I'll be giving my views on are:
-Weapon Mastery
-Walk-ins
-Role-less Buffs
All three of these have been (fairly) hot topics on the General Discussion forum for the last 2 or three days, with Walk-ins cropping up today. That being said, here are my thoughts.
Weapon Mastery
Weapon Mastery has some obvious flaws that everyone is starting to notice, or has already noticed but I've only just recently found the complaints (only started on the forum a few days ago). One of the primary complaints about WM, is that it caters heavily to Precision, you can get more damage with a Precision DPS setup and nothing but buff powers on your loadout, than you can with a Might DPS setup with actual damaging powers on your loadout.
In addition, there is also the complaint that Weapon Mastery has little benefit to the support roles, with the exception of the fact that trolls no longer need to power everyone constantly due to the reduced power cost if you clip the WM combo properly. I know that tanks for example (my main role) won't be using WM Combos during Gear Appropriate Content (GAC) because they'll be spending too much time blocking. So the only benefit for a tank is if they have enough SP to get enough weapons "mastered" so they can get the nodes at the very bottom to give as much in the ways of tank stats as possible.
Proposed Changes
I propose (thanks to a discussion had in another thread on this topic) the following changes to Weapon Mastery:
Remove Power Cost Reduction
Replenishing power is part of a trolls job. They're not solely there as the raid's battery, no. However, PoT and dump are still part of the trolls job. Any GOOD troll should have no problem coping with powering AND doing the rest of what they need to do (debuff, controlling, etc.)
Make WM a Power Amp
What I mean by this, is that it would amp your role specific power effects.
Trolls would get a greater PoT if they clipped a WM combo with their PoT; Stronger/longer lasting controls if they clipped the WM combo with a control power, etc etc.
Healers would receive greater HoTs (but not burst, so-as to avoid people feeling like they need to and potentially wiping because they didn't heal in time.) if they clipped...
Tanks would (in the case of Ice) gain a longer shield duration, or a more effective shield (takes more damage before it breaks).
DPS would actually be able to use their DPS powers instead of just spamming WM combos for insane damages.
Remove Damage Increase on the WM Combos
Specifically, remove the "High Damage Version" from all the cross weapon combos, WM shouldn't be about insane damage, it should be about balancing powers. Making every power a Precision DPS power is not balancing the powers. So keep the cross weapon combos, but remove the excess damage from the final hit.
Walk-ins
The primary issue with Walk-ins appears to be the abuse of them in order to get marks to "hyper"gear to higher tear content, allowing individuals new to the game to get to the end-game content without properly learning their role, without properly learning raid etiquette, and without learning other basic properties of how this game works.
The issue, is that Walk-ins are an integral part in how a lot of already experienced people gear their alts so as to avoid having to go through the hellacious grind again and again every time they make a new alt.
So the question is whether or not a medium can be achieved to keep both sides of the Walk-ins (experienced players vs new) balanced and prevent the Walk-ins from being abused.
Proposed Changes
To properly lay out a design idea for fixing the issue with walk-ins, you have to understand the people that get walk-ins, which there are basically two of.
1) Experienced players looking to skip the boring, mundane, and extremely tedious business of the BatCaves, FoS, etc. for any alts they make.
and
2) Inexperienced players that are informed of what a walk-in is by a Tier5 player the instant they hit lvl 30.
There ARE other types of people that do walk-ins, but they all fall primarily into one of these two sections.
So how do we solve these issues? Surely an experienced player should be able to hyper-gear his or her alts freely. Surely we don't want inexperienced players in T5 or T6 runs, well...
The precedent is already set for what needs to happen with Walk-ins. We're given a free XP Booster Box+ from the campaign missions while leveling. These (obviously) help us level our toons faster so we can reach that End Game glory that every DCUO player wants to reach. You can also purchase XP Booster Box+ with Station Cash via the Marketplace. Clearly SoE wants us to get our toons up to lvl 30 so we can find out where the real gameplay starts, end game.
So the proposed change I have in mind, is to lock everyone from walking into a raid unless they're high enough CR. Then, following the precedent found above, place a "walkin ticket" in the Marketplace for 100-300 SC, allowing for 1 walkin into a raid above your CR.
How does this fix the issue?
Experienced players now have an option at hand to power-gear their toons unimpeded by walkin limitations, providing they're willing to pay a paltry 100-300 SC to get the walk-in permissions.
Inexperienced players will not likely purchase anything from the cash shop because they're still new to the game and don't know if they'll stick it out, so unless a T5 player demands that they get a walk-in ticket, and they actually spend the money to get it, inexperienced players will no longer be getting walk-ins to hyper gear, meaning they'll play through the content as intended, and properly learn their role/raid etiquette/ etc.etc.
The added bonus this option gives, is SoE making a little more money. I, as an experienced player, and somewhat of an altoholic

This solution offers happiness to the experienced players that want to hyper-gear their alts, happiness to the experienced players that are sick and tired of getting horrible players in their T5 runs (due to not properly learning via the walk-in skipping of content), and happiness to SoE because, let's face it, who doesn't love a little extra money?

What about the SP difference from missing feats?
Simply put,I imagine that most people with an urge to hyper-gear an alt, will also have an urge to just buy feats with replay badges, at least to the extent of being more than capable of proper function in a T5 or T6 environment.
The only real way that the SP difference would be an issue, is if it was a fresh player that was on their first toon, and had never gotten the feats to begin with.
Role-less Buffs
This one is relatively simple, role-less buffs are supposedly "killing" the need for the support classes.
Agreed, the tank-less buff is far too strong, and allows for thanks to be neglected in all cases except the most extreme (lookin at you PW and Hal Jordan...)
The others are fairly negligible.
Proposed Changes
Basically, set a priority to each role-less buff (i.e. the tankless would have highest priority, troll having second, and heal being last priority (just an example...)). Then make it so each group gets ONLY one of these buffs, so if you run all DPS, you would ONLY get the tankless buff. If you had a Tank but no heal or troll, you would only get the troll buff, etc etc.
This would make it so that you couldn't flat out abuse it by running 4 DPS (in fact, make the priority == Troll is 1, Heal is 2, Tank is 3) because you would only get the troll buff (arguably not going to help a group of 4 DPS as much as the tank and heal buffs.)
Something like this would be my suggested fix for role-less buffs.
That's all ^_^
So what are some thoughts and opinions on this?
References
No Comments